Shubham Saharan

Students and faculty pushed against the lack of clarity around divestment, policies around relationships between faculty and students, and general administrative decision-making procedures during a heated Senate plenary meeting on Friday.

After decades of activism surrounding the University’s lack of dedicated scholarship to issues of race and ethnicity, Columbia approved its first African American and African Diaspora studies department last fall. Here, in light of Black History Month, some of those who made it happen reflect on the push for change in a slow-moving world of academia.

When former Barnard adjunct professor Hussein Rashid, CC ’96, first came to Columbia, he navigated his way through his undergraduate years as a first-generation low-income student with some difficulty. Twenty years later, when he returned as an adjunct professor of religion, he also took on an informal advising role in order to pass on his knowledge to students at Barnard.

The University Senate announced a new program to provide feminine hygiene products in various bathrooms across the Morningside Campus, including locations like Lerner Hall and Northwest Corner restrooms, at its monthly plenary Friday afternoon.

Three students, three professors, and several staff members were named inaugural recipients of the Barnard Inclusion Grant, which funds community initiatives that foster an environment of inclusion on campus, in an email sent to students from interim chair of the college’s Council on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Yvette Christianse on Wednesday.

Former Secretary of State and 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton joined New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to call for the codification of abortion rights into New York state law and promote the Reproductive Health Act at a rally held at Barnard’s Diana Center on Monday morning.

The Barnard contingent faculty union released a statement last Saturday warning Columbia’s graduate and postdoc unions against bargaining away their right to mobilize a strike authorization vote, citing their own experiences in negotiating a contract with Barnard two years ago.

In light of the nine-month anniversary of Beyond Barnard’s founding, the organization’s co-deans celebrated increased student use of its services, announced three additions to staff, and advertised their search for another associate director at Monday’s Student Government Association meeting.